


An Artist's View

by Skeren



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:53:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5728654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zack is an artist by trade, and the characters he creates are sometimes charming enough to talk to. He has no idea about their stories, but hey, his wife usually takes care of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Artist's View

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2011 and never posted anywhere for some reason.

Carefully finishing the last line of the picture he'd been working on, he felt a little grin cross his face. This one had promise. Sometimes, he knew when he finished something that the sketch just wasn't any good. It happened, more often than he'd like to admit even. 

Then again, Artists were nigh famous for picking at their own work. Aeris sure poked at him often enough to say what was good and what wasn't. As well as occasionally what desperately needed a little tweaking to get right. The woman of his most recent set of sketches had been one of those. Too much bust, not enough anything else. Not to say he was obsessed with chests! No, he just was crap at drawing women. 

Everyone had their weak points. He'd fixed it, Aeris had fed him dinner, and all had been right in the world. 

And now he might finally have figured out the main protagonist for the series he'd been working out characters for. He'd finished the girl first, since he knew she'd be hardest. When she'd been done and colored she'd been brown haired and brown eyed, but this guy made up for it. He wasn't manly like one of the others, who he still hadn't figured out the role for, and he wasn't small and feminine like the other guy he'd sketched the day before. 

Just... exotic. Even maybe grounds up to be an outcast if he picked the right coloration. At the moment though, the guy was only odd because of his long hair and cat eyes. He hadn't even been given clothes yet. 

Aeris approved of his ground up style of character design. At times, she roamed off with the early pre-costume drafts to keep for herself. He didn't mind that, it just meant that he always had a copy of the character around if he needed to tweak it or start over in the process of getting it right to fit into one story background or another. 

Unlike some, he didn't create his own mini-movies or stories, just the characters, or the faces of the characters. He was good at it. When it came up that he had characters but no stories, then sometimes Aeris would wander off with those too and make something of them. She said it was good that he didn't take breaks between projects for his artistic skill to rust up.

Personally, he just thought she liked what he looked like all mussed up from poking around his studio or computer all day.

He didn't mind that either. She was, after all, entitled to an opinion on her partner. They'd known each other a long time, then had sort of fallen into the whole married without taking common law into account thing. 

It had actually been kind of funny when they'd gotten word they were officially hitched. What with them not having set out to be.

And, his mind was wandering. Great. That meant it was time for a break before he did irreparable harm to his new masterpiece by picking at him. Setting down his pencil, he looked over his work area, a wry smile crossing his face.

This week had been filled with all kinds of unexpected pretty in his work. For once he hadn't felt the need to erase it and start over time and time again, and that had gotten him three very different little characters. Boys, all of them. Not that that was surprising, but he sometimes wondered about why guys always came so much more naturally to his sketchpad. 

Shaking his head, he reached over and took down the colored drawing he'd finished up the day before. He had the black and white sketch somewhere, but this one was the finished number. Blond, blue eyed, unnaturally pretty. Men just didn't _come_ in that variety in real life. At least not in the middle of Gongaga they didn't. Hell, they barely came in blond in this little city, let alone like this little guy.

"I should name you." His tone was amused, and he shook his head, turning in his chair a little. "Heck, all three of you, but I've never been all that good at it. I doubt any of you three would much appreciate being named spot or fluffy or kitty or anything like that. And yes, I have named things those names before, behold my creativity."

There wasn't an answer, of course, but he hadn't expected one. they were, after all, just pictures. Putting the little blond back into his lean on one wall, he straightened the other one, a black haired man who just looked too serious for himself. 

"Okay, maybe that one over there would be fluffy, and the new one would be kitty, but you, mister, would be grumpy." He laughed a little, then let his eyes wander over a few other pieces. "Now that one there, the red sketch? _He_ would totally be spot."

"Zack, are you talking to yourself again?" The amused voice from behind him made him jump, and he twisted to find Aeris leaning in his doorway. "Or are you just talking to those pretty things you spend so much time with anyway? A girl would think she'd not loved if she didn't have cause to know better!"

A little embarrassed to be caught talking to himself, he gave a little shrug and a sheepish smile. "I can't help it, when I'm surrounded by so much masculine charm a guy's gotta socialize. but you know this guy always wanders his way back over to the love of his life, the woman who cures all his ails."

"You mean the woman who feeds you and keeps you from being an ice cube when you remember to come to bed?" If anything, that made his look more sheepish, but she wasn't angry, just reminding him he had to leave the room eventually. "Zack, you do realize that was a hint right?"

Or.... maybe she was telling him that eventually was right now. "Wait, is dinner done?"

"Mmmhmm, and after dinner, right to bed. Any coloring or sketching and whatnot will just have to wait until tomorrow!"

"Hrm, I guess I can do that, but just this once! First come here. I wanna show you the new one. I think I'm done with him for the moment."

She made as if to pretend she wasn't going to, then heaved a mock sigh of the heavily put upon. She was curious though, and it showed in the way she immediately peeked over his shoulder. "Ohhh, this one's all shiny isn't he?"

She had such a way of making a guy feel unmanly sometimes. "I don't know about _shiny_ but he's an exotic looking one isn't he? Not a lizard man or anything, sure, but for someone mostly normal he'd stand out."

"Zack, I love you, but you don't draw normal." Leaning a bit further, she carefully freed the picture from the drawing table. "This one though, he really should be shiny though. Silver hair maybe? I know you've been wanting to do that hair color since last month when Elena commissioned that blue haired fellow."

"But a hair color like that just begs for red eyes or something. I did one of those not too long ago, and I really don't wanna get hung up on the whole cliché look thing."

"Well, they're cat eyes. Most people make cat eyes gold, but I've seen kitties with blue eyes, so maybe a blue green?"

"What? You don't wanna suggest a green like yours then?" He grinned, tilting his head back to look at her.

"Don't be silly, that would be even more stereotypical than the red." She flashed him an impish smile, passing him the sketch. "But, if you do, it was entirely your idea."

"Minx!" He put the picture down, then spun his chair around as she took off out of the room, giggling the entire way. He, of course, was obligated to follow in a mock attempt to catch her.

And, of course, the pictures took that chance to settle, just a little, into more comfortable positions within their frames.


End file.
